Blinding
by fairytalelights
Summary: She's blinding and she's bright and she's real, and Jack thinks there may be more to life than false smiles and fake fronts and elaborate masks and blinding lights. And when he's with Merida, everything is right and everything is real. Unfortunately, she's not his. And unfortunately, she's in love with someone else. /modern!AU. oneshot./


**this is, quite literally, the result of a few hours non-stop in front of my laptop screen because i was determined puke out this word vomit before i went to sleep. hence the crappy ending because i'm dead exhausted. **

**note. i don't know shit about movie stars and their world, and that angle comes up very little in here. just, you know, kind of. a bit. **

**hope you enjoy this, i guess? haha**

* * *

><p>When Merida first meets Jack Frost, she thinks that he is possibly the worst human being alive that she's ever had the luck to meet. She knows he is a famous movie star. She's seen the movies (some of them, anyway), She's read the articles (when she's tired and she's looking for some good juicy gossip to sink into). But she's never thought that he would be such a complete dick in real life too.<p>

The first sentence Jackson Overland Frost says to her is, "I'm not fucking paying you to stand around doing nothing."

She has to bite back the retort that rises to her lips, sharp and angry and cutting. Next to him, his director, or producer, or whoever the guy is, is sighing and shaking his head at Jack, but he doesn't say anything.

_Think of the money_, she tells herself. _Thinks of what it means to the school. To the kids. To the employees. _

Jackson Frost is here because he needs to learn archery. He needs to learn archery, because he is starring in some historical movie that is really all fiction, and the directors don't want to get it done with computer-generated effects because they think it'd be better in real life, and they can afford to get him the best archery lessons there are, anyway. He needs to learn archery because for the character he's playing, his whole life really revolves around archery and proving that it's not something for cowards just because archers aren't in the front line of attack.

And because he needs to learn archery, he is here, at _her _school, the school she's set up and built with her own bare hands four years ago. And because they want him to have the best teacher around, she is stuck teaching him.

She turns to Flynn Rider and McGuffin, standing behind her.

"Go get out my stuff, and a spare set," she says, sharply, "and get _him _ready." She jerks head back towards Jackson Overland Frost, who is now complaining to the white-bearded man whose name seems to be North that he doesn't actually _need _to learn how to fire an arrow and he's sure he'll do fine and that there are computer generated effects for this kind of thing and he is not willing to learn archery and especially not from some redhead with horrible frizzy hair.

Her eyelid twitches.

"Ah, no, Jack, Merida is the best teacher around, yes?" The jolly-looking guy beams at her, and Merida's face softens, just slightly. "She is marvellous archer! One of the best!"

"I need _the _best," Jackson Frost says, his face hard, his voice sounding like a whining, spoilt child's, but worse at the same time because he sounds completely bored.

She clenches her fists.

Rider is quick to hurriedly bring Jack over and explain to him some of the basic stuff while McGuffin shoots into the building to find Merida's bow and her quiver of arrows and gets out a spare set.

"You will take care of him, yes?" the guy beams at her again. "He is good boy, really."

Merida can still hear Jack's voice coming from inside the building now, and she has to take a deep breath.

"If he comes back with broken bones," she mutters, "it's not my fault."

North laughs.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes.<p>

Twenty minutes she's had to put up with Jackson fucking Frost, and she is about to throw all the niceties out the window and clobber him over the head.

As far as she knows, she is doing him a favour. She's no need to teach this stupid, stuck-up, arrogant arsehole how to use a bloody bow and arrow. She's no need to teach him archery, which is something _he _needs. Hell, she hardly has any need for the money – her family's got plenty. It's just that it would be nice to earn a lot more money on her own, for once, rather than relying on the Dunbroch family fortune.

But she doesn't mind dipping into the family fortune again, and again, and again, if it means Jackson fucking Frost will never come near her again.

She will admit that he is handsome. He's like a walking sex bomb. And he knows it.

He is also the most despicable human being she's ever met.

But she controls her anger. She controls her anger, because she knows that the famous movie star Jack Frost learning archery at her academy would mean a lot of good publicity too.

Unfortunately, she loses it when he snaps an arrow just because he can hardly hit the target after twenty minutes. It doesn't matter that he's a famous movie star. It doesn't matter that he is, technically, her customer. It doesn't matter that he towers over her, who-knows-how-many-feet of muscle and well-built limbs.

She blows.

"_What is your fucking problem_?" she all but screeches, and she is grateful that the land her academy's built on is so huge that there's no way the kids having lessons under Rider will be able to hear her swear, especially since they're training indoors today. "You don't just break an arrow when you don't get what you want!"

He stares at her in disbelief, for a moment, and then he narrows his eyes. "Listen up, miss, I'm paying you to teach me, and as far as I'm concerned – "

"No, _you _listen to _me_!" She glares at him angrily, takes a step forward so that she's staring up at him, her bright blue eyes staring into his icy ones. "First of all, _you _aren't the one fucking paying me! It's that director guy, whoever he is! I'm not some kind of idiot, so don't think you can scare me. I don't even need your damn money. And secondly, you think it's so easy to shoot an arrow? You think it's so easy to get it into a target? You think it's so easy to get a bulls'-eye, just like that, after twenty minutes?"

He opens his mouth, but she beats him to it.

"Then listen up, you fucker, you're dead wrong, you are!" She knows her accent is coming out, thick and heavy, the way it does when she flares up. "Archery is a sport that takes dedication and commitment to learn and to be good at. If you don't work for it, it's not going to work for you! It's more than just firing an arrow and expecting it to land where you want it to! And if you don't have that kind of dedication for it, the commitment to a part that you're playing, then I want you off my land and out of my academy in _ten minutes_! I don't need your stinking money! If you aren't even going to try, you clear out! I have better things to spend my time on than _you_!"

She glares at him, crosses her arms.

He looks down at her, at the arrows that have flown into the grass, and then back at her again.

Something flashes across his face, an emotion Merida doesn't recognise.

"Okay," he says, quietly, as if subdued.

She doesn't care. "Okay _what_?"

"Okay," he repeats. "I'll learn."

She looks at him suspiciously, but he looks at anywhere but her, and slowly, she begins again.

* * *

><p>He's not making a lot of progress.<p>

Merida has to force herself to stop growling in frustration every time he messes up, every time he does something that she knows she's already told him _not _to do at least twenty times before. She has to bite her lip and force the words down every time he gets all arrogant and cocksure, because she knows once she starts talking and arguing, he'll probably end up with a black eye.

"Don't you ever get bored?" he asks her, one day. "Doing the same thing, over and over again?"

She glances at him, a little surprised. They've been at it for an hour or so, and while he is definitely getting better, it's not that much better. He's in one of his good moods, she realises. One of his moods where he's not such a stuck-up ass.

"It's about consistency, I guess," she says, frowning a little. "But no. It's never boring. Every time you bring up the arrow, it's about focus, it's about you and yourself and your actions and what you're going to let yourself do. It's about getting something done over and over again so that it's the best you can do, about striving for perfection. It's never boring."

He nods, as he absorbs her words.

"What about teaching archery?" he asks her. "Don't you ever get bored of that?"

She laughs, then, and shakes her head, and for once, she sends him a smile. It surprises him how he jolts so quickly at her smile and her laugh; she's almost never done so, not in the week and a few days she's spent with him so far.

"Never," she assures him. "It's amazing. It's passing down what you know, seeing how people take what you say and what you do and adapt it so it suits them best, and seeing the results and know that you've been a part of it. And everyone I teach is different in their own way. It's never boring."

He nods, thoughtfully, and for once there is a sort of bright light in his otherwise icy eyes.

* * *

><p>Some days, though, he is a total jackass and she wants to scream and stomp back to the academy and <em>away <em>from this spoilt, bratty, whiny movie star.

"I want a drink," he says.

"Twenty minutes."

"No. I want one _now_."

He glares at her, and she glares at him, and when neither gives up, she sighs and tosses him a bottle of mineral water.

"It's not iced," he says. "And I don't drink this brand of water. It's so fucking disgusting. You need to get me another one."

"Get it yourself," she tells him.

He storms off early, that day, angrily, his pale face flushed and his hands shaking, and Merida spends the rest of the day dedicating herself to her sport, imagining Jack fucking Frost's face in every bulls'-eye.

* * *

><p>"It's not easy being in the movie business, you know," he tells her, one day.<p>

"Hmm."

She's not really interested. She doesn't really want to hear what he has to say. His lesson only starts at ten, and it is nine forty-five, and she is _not _willing to spend these last fifteen minutes of peace and freedom with him. Unfortunately, he has decided to be early, today, and he is not going away.

"Everyone wants to see you as something," he continues. "When you're real, and you're yourself, you have to be wonderful and loving and kind, or you have to be funny and hilarious and able to relate to everyone, or else you're a complete failure of a human. When you're not you, you have to put up a front, and you have to tell people that hey, this is who I am, and hope that they'll buy it."

"Sounds tough," she says, dully, examining the carving she's done on her bow.

"If you want to get somewhere, you have to find out who's who, you know, you have to go out and get there and make sure you know the right people," he says. "And then you have to make sure that wherever you go, whoever you talk to, you have to be the character you've made yourself out to be. You can't lose that."

"Doesn't it mean more publicity, though?" she asks as she blows on the carving, gently, before holding it out to examine it again, critically. _Nine fifty-two_, she thinks to herself. "When you break out of your character."

"Not always," he tells her. "You have to be who you show yourself to be. You have to be consistent. Nobody gives a damn about who you really are. Everyone only cares about themselves and what you mean to them and how what you do affects them. You have to have that front up, all the time, or else you lose everything you've worked for, because you're nothing without your fans."

"It sounds lonely," she says. "If you think that it's wrong that it doesn't matter how much you mean to someone. Or that the only people who matter are the ones who don't even know you."

He looks at her, then, a long, slow look.

* * *

><p>When Jack nearly yells at a kid – a cute, bright-eyed kid called Nemo – because he came up during their lesson and wanted to ask Merida about something, the Scot nearly loses it, too.<p>

She sends Nemo away, who is staring at Jack in tearful disbelief, to go and find McGuffin, before she whirls around on Jack.

"What were you _thinking_?" she demands. "He's a kid!"

"He interrupted the lesson!"

His face is flushed, his hands trembling, his fists clenched.

She nearly wants to throw her hands up in disbelief herself, and storm away. "So what?" she asks, furiously. "It's not like you give a fuck about the lessons half the time! It's not like we were even doing anything that important! You can't just call him trash like that! He's a _kid_! And more than that, he's a person, and he has emotions just like everyone else, and he should be treated with some respect! But hell, maybe you don't understand that yourself, since you don't seem to understand the concept of feelings and emotions and _others_!"

The lesson ends early, that day.

* * *

><p>He's not used to someone treating him like he means something. Like he matters as a person.<p>

Everyone expects him to be the famous star he is. After all, he's the biggest thing in Hollywood, and has been, on and off, for the past seven years or so. When he messes up, as he so often does – drunk driving, cheating on his girlfriends, addiction to stuff he never wants to think about again, violent conduct and misbehaviour – they sigh, they roll their eyes, they gossip, and they shrug it off. It's normal, they say, and then they put it into the press, pour out the little details of everything he's ever done in black-and-white, and it's up and everywhere on the Internet. He's a despicable human being, he's a wonderful actor, what else is there to say?

But she doesn't hold with that. She's hard, she's harsh, she yells and she tells the truth straight to his face, and she doesn't back down. She's funny and she's wild and she's brave and she's a complete daredevil. She doesn't care that he's famous, especially when he's acting like a dick, which really is 90% of the time, except when he manages to get his act together and he forgets the person he's supposed to be, a person thrown into the world of limelight and flashing lights and fake smiles and knowing laughter who knows how to handle himself because he knows who he is, what he has to do, how to get things done. In that other 10% of the time, he forgets the front he's put up, the front that gets him his fans and his endless roles in movies, and he doesn't have to pretend anymore. He doesn't have to pretend that he knows what he's doing or where he's going or what he wants, when really he doesn't have a clue.

When she's not mad at him, she's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to him. When she's mad at him, she's still the most amazing thing that's happened to him.

She doesn't tell him that people look up to him as role models and he should try to get his act together or else people will think of or view him badly. She just glares at him with those sharp blue eyes and she snaps at him that he is a human being and he is a person and he has emotions and so does everyone else and he's no right to treat people like trash and he should think of making something with his life that means something and not be such a dick. She tells him that life's lonely if he just makes it all about himself.

Merida is something different, and he thinks he's in it pretty deep.

* * *

><p>"You have any siblings?" she asks, as they finally come to the end of a long path through the woods that is <em>still <em>included in her academy's land (how on earth does she have so much land? He wonders), and he's exhausted but he's feeling great because he's managed to hit all the targets along the path, even if the shots aren't that fantastic.

And he's feeling even better, because she's next to him with her wild red hair out of its ridiculous braid and her eyes are bright and blue and smiling.

He looks at her, blinks.

"Yeah," he says. "Younger sister."

It's clear that he's not willing to say anything else, so she says, "I've got three younger brothers. Triplets. Wee devils, more like."

"Triplets," he says, sighing a little, and he can feel his mask, his front, slipping away, in the woods with this redheaded girl who doesn't believe in anything that's not real, who doesn't care about what anyone else thinks of her as long as she is who she is. "To think of all the pranks I could have played if I were a triplet."

"Don't say things like that," she tells him. "They're coming to stay here for the summer. You'll probably meet them."

"Staying here?"

He's a little dumbfounded.

"Yeah," she says. "I have living quarters in the academy. Rider, too. The triplets always stay with me during the summer, when their school lets off. I don't get to see them much because I don't leave this place often."

He's never known that she stays _here_. It's miles out from anywhere and anything. But then again, she's got Rider in the building with her. He wonders, for a moment, if they're together, and then he dismisses the thought immediately. It's clear, from the way they interact, that Rider sees Merida as his boss, and maybe a friend, but nothing more. Jack's learnt how to read people.

"It must be fun," he says, a little wistfully, "to have your brothers with you for three whole months."

"More like a nightmare," she says, and they laugh.

* * *

><p>One day, he asks her, "Do you have a boyfriend?"<p>

She looks at him in surprise, because out of all the strange things he's said ("When I was younger, I wanted to buy a llama when I had the money" to "I think a purple elephant would be fucking cool"), he's never said anything like that. He is looking at her, looking at her intently with his cool blue eyes and his white-blond hair all messed up from the wind and his hands twisting around each other slightly nervously.

"Yes," she says, absent-mindedly, because she's thinking of his incredible improvement in the past few weeks. It's not something she's expected, but it's something that's happened, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't happy about it, or if she said she wasn't proud of this stuck-up movie star. Then she asks: "You?"

He laughs, a bit, but she's so wrapped up in her thoughts she doesn't even realise that his laughter sounds just a little forced, that the smile on his face doesn't reach his eyes. "Not a boyfriend," he says. "But I guess Rapunzel's my girlfriend. Sort of."

"Sort of?" she echoes, drawn out of her thoughts. Rapunzel Corona, she thinks. Large green eyes, blinding smile, long blond hair. Very beautiful.

"Yeah," he says. "She's the other main part in the movie, you know. They thought it'd be good publicity. And she's a good fuck."

"I didn't really need to know that," she says. "That sounds harsh. And completely stupid."

He tries not to be affected by the fact that she doesn't seem concerned whether he's with Rapunzel or not, or even with his statement that Rapunzel's a good fuck. He's a famous movie star, he tells himself, firmly. He can get practically any girl he wants, especially with where he is right now. Hell, if he wanted to grab one of his fangirls from the middle of the street and into somewhere quiet and fuck her, he'd probably have no problem.

So why does this loud, reckless Scot never leave his damn mind?

"Yeah?" he asks, finally.

He is looking at her again, really _looking _through his eyes, his face thoughtful but closed, and she doesn't notice.

"Yeah."

* * *

><p>Jack meets the triplets, one day, as he parks his car and gets out.<p>

They're there, three teenage boys with unmistakeable bright red hair, watching the twenty-five-year-old movie star step out of his convertible and remove his sunglasses.

"You're Jack Frost," the triplet on the right says.

"I am," he says. "Do you boys want an autograph?"

"No," says the triplet on the left. "Not really."

Jack thinks that maybe this whole straightforwardness thing that he's seen in Merida is a family trait.

"Rapunzel Corona," says the triplet in the middle. "Do you think you could get us her photo and an autograph?"

Jack blinks at them in surprise. And then he remembers that these are teenage boys, and Rapunzel is a very attractive twenty-three-year-old woman.

He gets their names – Hubert, Hamish and Harris – and he tells them he'll try to get it next time he comes round.

The one Jack thinks is Hubert appraises him. "You're not so bad," he finally decides. "No wonder Merida complained so much in her messages."

Jack blinks at him: "Huh?"

The one that he thinks is Hamish rolls his eyes. "Merida. She complains to us about you all the time."

The one that must be Harris sighs. "She doesn't complain so much about anyone, unless she likes the person pretty well."

There's a spring in Jack's step as he walks away from the triplets minutes later, a grin on his face as he runs his hand through his hair.

Hubert, Hamish and Harris exchange looks, and shake their heads, and sigh.

* * *

><p>Merida's just stepped outside the stables, breathing in the cool fresh air after an early morning ride on Angus, when a voice behind her says, "You know, some people might find it unfair you look so beautiful even when you're all muddy and sweaty and dirty."<p>

She whirls around at that, her eyes brightening, as she takes in the tall figure standing before her, dark-haired and well-built with an intense green gaze, smiling at her.

She doesn't stop to think. "Aster!"

She practically flings herself onto the Australian, tackling him so hard that they both land on the ground and get splattered with mud and dirt.

"Careful, Red," he grunts. "Damn, this shirt was clean this morning – "

She just laughs and brushes her hair out of her face as they straighten themselves out, both of them sitting on the ground, Aster's legs extended on either side of her. He smiles when he sees her, her mud-spattered outfit, her wild hair coming out of its braid, the smile lighting up her face. It feels like forever since he last saw her or heard her voice in real life, not through his laptop screen or over his phone.

"I'm not kidding, Red," he grumbles, trying to get his face into a scowl. "I specially cleaned that shirt just to come and see you – "

"That's why I get to dirty it," she explains, and she laughs again, and he laughs too, because it's not like he really cares about his stupid shirt anyway.

And then she pulls him in for a kiss, long and slow and hard.

* * *

><p>Jack wonders if it was a good idea to drop Bunny off before parking his car. Bunny says that he's been here before, and he knows his way around the place, but Jack's doubtful. Bunny is his best friend, but he probably has the worst sense of direction. Ever.<p>

So he hurriedly parks his car and he makes his way around the academy building, looking for his annoying tall Australian friend and for a mane of wild, red hair –

And then he stops, abruptly, and he stares.

He's not sure what he's expected. Maybe Bunny looking around, completely lost, Merida demanding who the hell he was and what on earth was he doing in her academy.

Whatever he expected, it's not to see them with their arms wrapped tightly around each other as they stand somewhere in front of the doorway to the stables, kissing each other like they never want to let each other go.

When they finally break apart, he's still standing there.

A thousand thoughts are whirling around his head, his chest aches, his heart a confused mess of emotions and he feels like he's just been punched in the stomach and he's not really sure if he can remember how to breathe.

It's Merida who notices him, first, and her face flushes nearly as red as her hair.

Jack notices, as if in a different world altogether, that they're both covered in mud and in dirt.

"You're early," she says, as if slightly embarrassed.

"Well, yeah, that was me," Bunny says. "I made him do it."

She blinks, looking confused. "Wait, what?"

Jack manages to croak: "I didn't know you two know each other." And then he reassembles his face, finds his mask, his front, and slips it on, because he thinks his heart may just be cracking into two and he doesn't quite know what to do: "Bunny's my best friend."

"Wait – _what_?" She turns to look at Bunny, who has his arm around her waist, and is grinning at her. "_Aster_!"

_Aster_, Jack thinks. Nobody calls Aster Bunnymund by his first name. _Everyone _calls him 'Bunny'.

"Well," Aster says, somewhat apologetically, "we grew up together, when I moved over from Australia. Middle school till high school, until he graduated and got that part in that film that started all of this glamorous crap." He sends a grin Jack's way, but Jack can't quite find it in himself to return it. "Went to college, and then got into teaching, but he's still my best mate. Can't have him forgetting me after all the shit he put me through."

"As far as I recall, it was me bailing you out half the time," Jack says, because his heart is _not _breaking and he is _fine_. "How do you – how do you two know each other?"

He has to lean against the stable walls, because he's not sure if he can keep himself up on his own two feet. He thinks of the many phone calls Bunny's made him over the past few years about his girlfriend, never mentioning her name or what she does, just talking and talking and _talking _about her. He thinks of when he asked Merida if she had a boyfriend.

He has to swallow, hard.

"He's my brothers' art teacher," Merida explains, and Jack notices how easily she rests her head on Bunny's shoulder, how Bunny lets his hand rest protectively around Merida. "A couple of years ago – "

"Four and a half years," Bunny interjects.

" – my brothers caused some trouble in art class, you see, and my parents couldn't go down because they were on a business trip. So I had to go down for them, where this big dope decided to share with me his concerns over my brothers' behaviour, and then asked me out."

"I thought it was very well done," says Bunny, "considering it was an extremely last minute decision that I made on the spot."

"Very well done," Merida agrees, but there's a laugh in her eyes and a smile on her lips as she rests against Bunny easily, like it's where she's meant to be.

For Jack, he feels that he is hollow and aching and nothing will ever be right again because yes, Merida does have a boyfriend and it's his best friend and he doesn't know what to do and the world is falling apart around him.

* * *

><p>One more month, Jack tells himself. One more month of archery lessons and that is it, and this is over, and he can go back to the real world and to his life and to the endless cameras and microphones and to the pretty girls giggling around him day and night.<p>

But how can that be the real world, when here's the only place he ever feels real?

One more month, he reminds himself. One more month.

He tells himself that he's counting down the days till when he can get out of the redhead's academy. He tells himself it's _not _because it's the summer and since Bunny doesn't have to teach anymore, he's moved in to stay with Merida at the academy, and Jack can only imagine how they spend their nights together. He tells himself it's _not _because every time outside of his lessons with Merida, every time he's in the academy, they are always together, Merida and his best friend, his best friend and Merida.

They are not an overly PDA kind of couple. They hold hands, they kiss, Bunny puts his arm around Merida's waist. Jack has seen plenty worse. But there is just something about the way they look at each other, about the way they smile at each other, that makes his heart twist and hurt and ache so badly.

So Jack tries to distract himself in other ways. No, not distract – that would imply that the idea and image of Bunny and Merida together is strange and disturbing and one he hopes to avoid. No, he _busies _himself with throwing himself into his role, with going out on dates with Rapunzel and smiling for the cameras that inevitably appear and he _doesn't _see a mane of curly, wild red hair where there are straight blond locks or see bright blue eyes where there are large green ones, and he _definitely _isn't missing the hours spent at the academy and across the miles of land that Merida owns for her academy where everything is real and right and there are few secrets or false fronts.

He is _definitely _not missing the long hours spent with Merida.

* * *

><p>One day, Merida tells him this is his last lesson.<p>

It's strange, Jack thinks, how a month can pass so quickly.

"You've been doing great," she says, and she's grinning at him. They're somewhere in the woods, and Merida has set up moving targets and everything – how on _earth _does she have the money to do all this? – and he's done well, he knows he has. "Really. Just make sure you keep on practicing and you'll be fantastic."

"There's always the computer-generated effects," he says. "All I have to do is look cool and look like I know what I'm doing."

"You try and do that all the time," she says. "It's not that great. And besides, I spent a lot of time teaching you, Frost. You'd better put those skills to use."

Sunlight is filtering through the green canopy of leaves around them, through the branches and the trees and there is birdsong in the air and the rustle of leaves over the ground as animals prowl through the forest, and Jack Frost is sitting there across Merida and he thinks that this may be the last time he will ever see her properly.

This will be the last time he will sit across her with a bow and arrow on the ground beside him and with her own things next to her, this is the last time he will sit in this place that is so real and honest and true with a girl who makes him feel like all he has to do is be himself and that he doesn't have to be the dickhead he's always been to the public and that he can be a better person for himself and for others because he's Jack Frost, cheeky albino boy with a wide grin, and not because he's Jackson Overland Frost, famous movie star with the attitude to match his ridiculous name.

This is the last time he'll be spending any time with this girl who makes him feel like he _should _be a better person. Who makes him feel like he shouldn't be ashamed to be himself and damn the people who try and cover up who he is. Who makes him feel like there's more to life than the endless lights and pleasing his fans and the false smiles and the deceit.

He doesn't think.

He leans forward and kisses her.

For a moment, everything is _right_.

And then his hands close over hers, and she jumps away, scalded, her eyes wide open in shock, breathing heavily, because _this is not Aster and what the fuck is she doing_?

Jack looks at her, for a very long time, and she stares back, and she is so very aware of her heart pounding and her cheeks flaming and the guilt that is just beginning to grow already gnawing at her heart.

He jumps to his feet and pounds his way down the path, back to the academy.

* * *

><p>That day, Jack makes Bunny head over to his house with him. He doesn't give Bunny a chance to see Merida before he leaves, just makes the Australian scribble a note and leave it on the table and slide into Jack's car. Bunny doesn't ask why, doesn't protest, because he can see from Jack's wide eyes and his pale, whiter-than-white face and his trembling hands that something is very wrong.<p>

That day, Jack tells Bunny everything. He doesn't leave a single thing out.

That day, Bunny storms away from Jack and his freakishly-decorated mansion, his heart thumping and his ears pounding.

* * *

><p>That night, Merida is pacing the bedroom that she shares with Aster, because she can't sleep and everything is all wrong and she wants to cry but she is Merida Dunbroch and she does not cry.<p>

She is still awake when the door swings open at two am, and Aster is standing in the doorway, looking exhausted and dead tired, but he is _there_.

Merida forces him to sit on the bed so he can rest, and she is about to stammer an apology and she is so afraid she is about to cry even though she _does not cry_, when Aster says: "I know."

She blinks, and her hands clutch tightly at each other. "You – you know?"

"Jack told me," Aster says, heavily, and then he reaches out, grasps her hand, small, pale fingers wrapped in his large warm hand. "It's not your fault. It's not."

"You're not – you're not angry?"

Merida doesn't know what she'll do, and she is nearly despairing at the fact that she is so dependent on Aster, but this is Aster and he is probably one of the most important things in her life and has been for the past four and a half years and she never wants to let him go.

"No," he says. "I mean, I was, at first. But it's not your fault. Jack told me you backed away almost immediately, once you got over the shock. And I know you. You'd never do anything to hurt me."

He is looking at her, almost pleadingly.

And then she realises. He needs her to say it to him. He knows that she doesn't lie, that she never lies. He needs to know because this is the famous movie star Jack Frost and he is just a simple arts teacher at a high school and because he loves her and he knows she loves him but he needs reassurance that she does. He needs reassurance because he's just Aster Bunnymund, her brothers' art teacher who took the plunge and asked her out when he saw her come into the office with her red hair all over the place and her accent echoing off the walls, and because _he _is Jack Frost, the most popular actor in Hollywood right now.

Her heart clenches, because there's never been any contest.

"I wouldn't," she says, softly. "You know I wouldn't. I love you."

He smiles at her: "I love _you_."_  
><em>

His hands squeeze hers, gently, softly, and she kisses him then, and her heart warms, because everything is good and right and real.

* * *

><p>The next day, the press goes berserk over the news that famous movie star Jackson Overland Frost has emerged from his mansion with a black eye and a couple of purpling bruises, and refuses to give any sort of statement as to how he got them.<p>

At the end of the month, North tells Jack that the pretty Scottish redhead who has taught Jack archery is engaged, and she's marrying her boyfriend of three and a half years, who is none other than Jack's best friend, all the way from his school days, Aster Bunnymund.

"It is small world, yes?" North beams, his eyes politely skating over the bruises on Jack that have faded slightly but still can be seen. "You are going to the wedding?"

Jack only shrugs.

A week later, he receives a letter from Bunny.

It is short and to the point, just like how Bunny is.

_I want you to be there, if you're up to coming. If you don't think you can cope, then it doesn't matter. But you're my best mate, and I can't think of anyone else I would rather have as my best man. Bunny._

* * *

><p>A couple of months later, while they're still filming for that stupid movie that got this whole mess started, Jack doesn't show up one day and instead watches as his best friend dances with the fiery Scottish redhead that has never left his mind, not since he kissed her and ended up paying for it with a black eye and a couple of bruises and insults and yells from the best friend he's ever had.<p>

She glances over at him, once, and she sends him a small, uncertain smile.

Just a kiss, Jack thinks. Just a kiss. In the world today, a kiss isn't even anything important. It's nothing much. It's not that big of an issue.

But that's wrong, he thinks. It is a big issue. It is a huge, massive issue. It is a betrayal of trust and friendship and love. A betrayal of everything that really counts in this world. It is a betrayal he made to his best friend, and to Merida.

He watches them dance, and when he hears her laugh, when he sees her lean her head on Bunny's chest because that's how small she is compared to the massive Australian, he's not really sure whether it's his heart breaking into two because he doesn't think hearts are supposed to work that way.

He's not really sure if he can remember how to breathe.

* * *

><p><strong>author's note. i don't actually know anything about what i've written - it really kind of is complete nonsense. i think. literally my ramblings the entire day. i meant to make it a lot more depressing but this felt fun to write too, so maybe i'll write something depressing next time round. and angsty. and sad.<strong>

**anyway, i chose to use bunny because he and jack are like, you know, best friends, and i thought it'd be cool if this kind of coincidence really did happen. and because i ship asterida like crazy, apart from the fact that, you know, he's a huge bunny and she's not. **


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